Postcards

The Salmon River offers pilots a bottom-up view of Idaho's backcountry

The water froths into white foam as it cascades over large rocks and drops into a roiling rapid. Cold droplets are flung into the air, seem to hesitate at the peak of their trajectories, and then fall, eliciting shrieks from the people riding in a line of gray inflatable rafts running the granite gauntlet.

The roar of the water is a constant on the river — only the volume changes, with the distance from the nearest rapids.

Then a familiar drone builds, increasing rapidly in pitch, until a Cessna 185 at takeoff power seemingly explodes from the treetops beside the river. The sun glints off of its white-and-blue flank as its fuselage for an instant eclipses one of the rafts. And just as quickly the airplane is gone.

To these rafters, the airplane might have seemed unusual only because, except for other rafters, they had not seen any other people for more than two days. That's how long they had been rafting Idaho's Salmon River, and they are deep into the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness.

Steven Shephard notices the airplane's passing, however. Shephard has spent 30 years on the river. He owns Salmon River Outfitters, one of several businesses that offer guided rafting trips down the Salmon, and he's paddling one of the rafts today. He's also an instrument-rated commercial pilot, and although he hasn't done much flying lately, he proudly claims delivery position number one for the Mountain Goat, a Piper Super Cub-like airplane undergoing development and certification in California. Curled up on a platform behind Shephard is Boss, his yellow lab, who appears to have the situation under control.

At 425 miles, the Salmon River — "The River of No Return" — is the longest free-flowing river within one state in the lower 48. The river originates in the Sawtooth and Lemhi valleys in central and eastern Idaho, and is fed by melting snow from four mountain ranges. The Salmon flows through the second deepest canyon in the continental United States; at up to 9,000 feet deep, its granite walls are one-fifth of a mile taller than those of the Grand Canyon. Only Hell's Canyon, cut by the Snake River just to the west along Idaho's border with Oregon, is deeper.

The River of No Return moniker goes back to the Lewis and Clark expedition, according to Jim Townley of McCall, Idaho, who has researched the history of the state's backcountry and its airports. "They started down the Salmon River but the Indians told them that they'd never make it," he explains. "So they backtracked and selected a more northern route."

Precisely because the area is so inaccessible, those who live in this wilderness — as well as those who operate seasonal fishing camps, hunting lodges, and guesthouses in the isolated canyon — depend on regular, year-round air transportation for food, medicine, mail, and other essentials. Today pilot Ray Arnold will land his Cessna at most of the eight small, primarily private airports in the canyon, and that's only part of his mail route (see " Mail Day," p. 135).

The River of No Return Wilderness, which comprises 2.4 million acres, was established by the Central Idaho Wilderness Act in 1980. It combines with the adjoining Gospel Hump and Selway-Bitterroot wildernesses to the north to form a 6,000-square-mile area with no roads and few inhabitants. Although motorized vehicles are prohibited in most congressionally designated wilderness areas, the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness allows flight operations at many backcountry airstrips; operation of jet boats also is allowed on the Salmon River. The exceptions essentially were grandfathered into the legislation designating the wilderness, in recognition of the area's historic reliance on both modes of transportation.

Shephard says that Salmon River Outfitters relies on general aviation today for transportation of its customers to the backcountry, although his operation doesn't use the private airstrips deep in the canyon. Several air taxis offer service between Boise, Idaho — the nearest airport with airline service — and Lemhi County Airport in Salmon, Idaho. Most guests overnight in Salmon before the bus ride to the edge of the wilderness, where they stay in a private lodge before hitting the river early the next morning. Five days and four nights later, the rafts are pulled from the river for the last time and buses carry everyone to McCall, Idaho, where air taxis complete the triangle to Boise.

Many pilot customers fly themselves to Salmon, Shephard adds, and then catch an air taxi from McCall to rejoin their aircraft — or Shephard can arrange to have the aircraft ferried to McCall while the pilot is on the river. Lemhi County offers a 5,100-foot-long paved runway at an elevation of 4,045 feet, while McCall's 6,100-foot runway is nearly 1,000 feet higher at 5,020 feet. Shephard suggests that pilots inexperienced with high density altitudes — which are exacerbated by summer's heat — or interested in exploring any of the backcountry strips during their visit seek qualified instruction. McCall Mountain/Canyon Flying Seminars (see " The Ins and Outs of Canyon Flying," September 2000 Pilot) specializes in such training; for more information, call 208/634-1344 or visit the Web site ( www.mountaincanyonflying.com).

Once on the river, however, flying will seem far away, unless from a raft you notice one of the tattered windsocks marking the end of a canyon airstrip. On your 80-mile water journey, you're more likely to think about relaxing, and about food.

Ever since Gourmet magazine published an article praising his food, Shephard says, he's had to make sure that his menu meets customers' heightened expectations. Breakfast might feature Basque pie, containing sausage, potatoes, onions, and eggs — "It's like an Idaho shepherd's pie, and it's all made in one skillet." Lunch could include homemade chicken salad, with large chunks of white meat. The dinner menu includes such entrees as poached salmon with dill, fettuccini with jumbo shrimp, chicken enchiladas ("That's the recipe that got us into Gourmet magazine in 1988"), and garlic-rubbed barbecued beef tri-tips. Cheese and crackers, fruit, and other appetizers are served with wine before dinner.

One point needs to be made clear about a Salmon River Outfitters trip. Although this is a wilderness experience, you will by no means be "roughing it."

Operations are conducted on river time. One of Shephard's guides — they call themselves river rats — blows a conch shell to signal morning coffee, and again for breakfast. Afterwards camp is struck, and all the dome tents, sleeping bags, folding chairs, kitchen equipment, food, trash, campfire ashes — everything is loaded ingeniously into the rafts. Floaters on the river must observe a "leave no trace" policy and have to carry fire pans, portable toilets, and other equipment. Shephard likes his group to be the first on the river each morning, because the chances of seeing wildlife (moose, bighorn sheep, deer, mountain goats, black bears, and many smaller varieties) are better. Also, campsites are first-come, first-served in the canyons.

For guests who may want to experience the river but don't wish to camp — flush toilets and hot showers are really the only amenities lacking — Salmon River Outfitters offers several "lodge trips," where each night is spent in a riverside guest lodge. Theme trips include wilderness wine tastings, a Fourth of July celebration, Native American lore, a folk storyteller and harpist, and guest chef trips.

Bright green ferns mark the mouth of aptly named Fern Creek. A couple of areas along the south bank of the river still show scars of 1988 fires. Scorched tree trunks point skyward surreally from verdant surface growth. Severe forest fires in Idaho last summer forced the cancellation of some trips. Shephard said that although the fires stayed in higher terrain and caused no serious damage in the canyon, thick smoke halted activity on the river in mid-August.

At the lunch stop, a large open-sided, tentlike shelter is erected and food preparations begin. The conch shell announces the meal. Then guests have a chance to work off lunch. Passengers can simply ride one of the rafts, or choose the "paddle boat," where everybody rows under the direction of a guide. The adventurous can opt for inflatable two-person kayaks.

At the end of the day, guests pitch their tents (lessons and a river safety briefing are provided on the first day) and relax until appetizers are ready. One evening the sounds are fascinating as a brief thundershower rumbles its way down the valley. But the skies quickly clear, and a large family group plays an animated round of charades as the summer twilight lingers.

Day three brings the Big Mallard rapids, one of the biggest on the river. "It's a little embellished, but it's one of the biggest drops from top to bottom," Shephard explains. "We saw a moose swim it once, so it's not too treacherous."

The Chittham Creek rapids, encountered on the last day just a hundred yards before the takeout point at Vinegar Creek, surprises some guests. "It's the closest thing to a Grand Canyon rapid that there is" on the river, explains guide Kimberly O'Connor, a chef from Pollock Pines, California. "Some [rapids] are forgiving. Chittham is one that wouldn't be forgiving [going] sideways." Her husband, Daniel, an eighth-grade teacher, is also a guide on this trip.

"It's a major rapid — one that keeps getting bigger," adds guide Dave von Essen of Driggs, Idaho.

"Overall the Salmon is an intermediate river, whitewater-wise," Shephard observes. "It's a big volume of water, but not a lot of surface rocks. It's just a big roller coaster ride." Although the Salmon is a Class III river, he adds, at certain water levels — especially early in the year, when melting snow can increase the river's flow to more than five times the normal summer level — "you can get a Class IV ride."

Salmon River Outfitters conducts about a dozen trips down the river each year, from mid-June through the end of September. Each trip is limited to about 20 guests. For more information, call 800/346-6204 or 208/325-3400, or visit the Web site ( www.salmonriveroutfitters.com).

E-mail the author at [email protected].

Mail Day

Llamas aren't special delivery in Idaho's backcountry

With 20 degrees of flaps hanging in the breeze, Ray Arnold's Cessna 185 is slowly descending over the middle of Idaho's Salmon River. He looks intently out the left window, and as he passes an outcropping of rock and a small stand of trees, he banks smartly left, drops the rest of the Cessna's flaps, and rolls out on short final for a one-way strip that slopes uphill and, from this perspective, seems impossibly short. Arnold transitions smoothly into the flare and then brakes firmly. The only deviation from perfection comes near the top of the strip, where that braking briefly takes on distinct sliding characteristics.

"That clover is slick," Arnold says dryly after the plane comes to a stop, "especially when it's wet."

After dropping off a couple of packages and some groceries, he picks up some outgoing mail, turns around, and takes off downhill. A sick cat in a plastic carrier, on its way to the vet, voices its displeasure. Soon Arnold is cruising VFR above 9,000-foot-plus ridgelines that stretch to the horizon. But it's just another day at the office for this veteran backcountry aviator.

A pilot since 1963, it's Arnold's twenty-sixth year flying the Salmon River mail route. "1975 is when we started our mail contract," he recalls. "That's when I went into it full time."

The route, which has existed since the 1950s, has 22 stops. "Sometimes it takes three airplanes," Arnold explains. Today, in addition to the mail, there are 11 hunters and other passengers to carry out of the backcountry. A Cessna 206 and the 185 — two-thirds of Arnold Aviation's fleet, which is based south of McCall in Cascade, Idaho — are on the route today.

The infirm feline is far from unusual as cargo goes. "I had an 80-pound lamb the other day. One of the ranches was having a barbecue. It was kind of a cool customer," Arnold laughs. But a pair of llamas provided a greater challenge. "One got into the plane fine and the other gave us all sorts of trouble. When it came time to unload, it was the opposite." Once seated, though, they were fine. "You put 'em in and get a seatbelt over their back. Because they can't extend their back legs, they can't rise up."

Most of the eight airstrips along the main section of the river were built near homesteads established in the early 1900s. Seven are private, and only one of the eight — Mackay Bar, a private 1,900-foot turf strip at an elevation of 2,045 feet — appears on the Great Falls sectional or in Fly Idaho!, Galen Hanselman's guide to the state's backcountry airports. Wilson Bar, the public strip, is 1,500 feet of turf owned by the U.S. Forest Service; the private James Ranch strip is only 600 feet long. None is for the faint of heart, especially considering the elevation, adjacent terrain, turbulence, and summer's density altitudes.

"This is the only area I've ever flown," Arnold says, scanning for traffic between position reports on the backcountry multicom frequency of 122.9 MHz. Asked whether he likes it, because he's done it for so long, he reflects before answering. "Yeah, I guess I do." — MPC